During 135 minute exam at Pearson VUE test center, after clicking NEXT icon, experienced several freezes requiring PC reboots and about a dozen IE timeouts.

For each of these interruptions, had to raise my hand and wait for the staff to resolve. Staff assured me everything was ok and to just keep going. The test PC remaining time was correct and the screen was on the next question.

At the end of the exam I happen to click previous and my last answer was missing. There was no time to review all questions as I had not marked which questions required PC reboots and timeouts.

Oracle exam score was far lower than I would have expected based on:
Real world knowledge of the subject.
Feed back from the Oracle training class instructor.
High scores for MCSE MS SQL DBA certification exams
Hard science scholar ships paid for my college education.
The exam questions were fairly simple.

Is this problem of freezing and timeouts an issue with Oracle, Pearson VUE or the test center?

What you indicated sounds annoying, but it should not change any of your answers. If answers were not being recorded, that's another story. However, at the end of the test, a screen pops up showing all of the test questions by number and highlights those with no answer. If that screen showed no missing answers, then there weren't any.

Whether you passed or failed, I'd report this issue to Pearson VUE at www.pearsonvue.com/oracle/contact, providing as much detail as possible. I also suggest that you obtain an incident number in case you need to follow up on this issue in the future. If answers were not recorded due to technical issues, Pearson needs to investigate. If you passed - well done. As mentioned, you score does not factor into whether or not you receive a certificate. And retakes of passed exams is not allowed. If you did not pass, Pearson needs to investigate to see if the issues you experienced could have caused you not to pass. Please do submit the issue to them.

Brandye Barrington wrote:
As mentioned, you score does not factor into whether or not you receive a certificate.

That's worded a bit strangely. So long as the score is at or above the passing mark, how far above has no effect on your certificate.
Passing with 68% is as good as passing with 98% from the standpoint of receiving a certificate.

Trouble tickets were opened with both Oracle or Pearson. I am not expecting any answers from either. In my experience only a network sniffer determines, if mouse click actions/events are lost, when the application freezes. There were other people at the test center requiring support, but I have no clue for what issues.

For me the score is critical for two reasons:

1) I take certification exams to see if I have gaps in my knowledge for a given subject.

So a score of 68% means I have gaps and a 98% would mean I do not have gaps.

2) My employer requires a high score to pay for the exam. A 68% would be a possible termination score with most managers. Although 1Z0-054 is a more complex exam than any other I have taken, based on real world experiences of using these tools, I expected a score near 100%.

I am guessing either the specific test center had network issues OR the Pearson servers are still having performance issues.

If I take another Oracle exam my plan: I will record my answers with the dry marker, and do a review of the previous few questions, after any exam application freeze. I am 100% confident at least one previous answer was lost during a freeze but then that was the only one I clicked previous to check. Mainly because it was the last one Marked and I was then out of time.

Although 1Z0-054 is a more complex exam than any other I have taken, based on real world experiences of using these tools, I expected a score near 100%.

The Expert exams are rough. I've taken (and passed) three and every single one I have taken has been more difficult than I expected it to be. One would think that after the first (or the second) that I'd be able to set my expectations correctly, but one would be wrong. I have not taken 1Z0-054 yet, although it is the next one in my sights.

I think that if you were to have the test in front of you with your answers and the key that you would find that you were suckered by some of their decoy answers. The Expert exams delight in having 'almost-right' answers to act as a red herring. I have 17+ years of experience working with Oracle; I have taken twenty Oracle certification exams; and I have written twelve Oracle Certification study guides. Despite that and despite the fact that I research diligently for each test I take, the Expert exams still make me nervous.

I did not see the exam as that tough. For years I have been delivering 100x performance improvements for mission critical production systems. I prove any change, based on Oracle tools including Real Application testing. I love the tools covered with this Exam and use the all the time.

On the other hand may be I got tricked... 62 out of a passing 64 it would take only one question. I actually did a lot better on the non scored questions.

Anyway I have reschedule the exam. With your 20 exam experience would appreciate any feed back on my new plan:

I found out the training material for the instructor lead class was 11.1 instead of 11.2. They had a last minute instructor replacement and this was not his area of experience.

So I have been through Oracle Support, Online documentations updated anything that would be different for 11.2

I am sure the following is incorrect but maybe the Exam is using this instead of the other Oracle source material:

In particular I highly suggest using tip 9. I have found marking questions that I am not *positive* that I got correct to be a big help when taking exams. It helps me in three ways:

Occasionally when looking back over my answer to the question while deciding whether I'm positive, I realize that the answer is wrong -- either because I was fooled or because I mis-clicked.

At the end of the test when I go back over marked questions that I was uncertain about, sometimes later questions will have given me the data to pick the right answer. Other times, I'll have recalled the answer on my own while taking the rest of the test. Either way, re-checking at the questions I'm uncertain about is useful.

Isolating the questions I am uncertain about helps me post-test because I like to look this information up afterward so that I know the information going forward. Even if I passed the exam, I'd like to know the correct answer, and if I fail, it gives me very specific areas to study for the next one. I talk more about that in the following article:

As to the TIMED_STATISTICS typo, I seriously doubt that would make it into the exam. The test developers don't blindly cut&paste information from the docs into the exam, and that is what would be required in this case. You might report that error here so that it will get fixed: